Promotional Consideration: The Usual Suspects
This week's creative but confusing installment comes from Leo Burnett Milan, the same advertising firm behind "Communion Day," the first Promotional Consideration ad (and one of the smartest) we ever featured. The print piece presents a police lineup of criminals and ne'er-do-wells, suspects for an unspecified crime -- really, it's less of a "whodunit" than it is a "what does it mean?" Step past the post break and peer through this one-way mirror to solve the mystery yourself!
Click the image for a larger version!
Danny Trejo (NSFW)? Keyser Soze? Dr. Kawashima?!
It's certainly different from any other Brain Training ad we've ever seen! Where's Nicole Kidman? Patrick Stewart? Or any of the other celebrities Nintendo has been trotting out to promote the non-game's expanded audience?
While we're willing to congratulate Leo Burnett Milan for its originality, we're surprised that the firm decided to use such a vague piece. In our opinion, the ad's message isn't clear enough for most viewers to pick up. We've come up with three plausible points raised by the scene:
Crime doesn't pay! Pick up Brain Training, learn some critical thinking abilities, and make yourself an honest living. (This one's a bit of a stretch.)
Do something useful with your time! Instead of playing cards and eating junk food, you should be training your brain. You don't want to turn out like that old guy on the right when you get older!
Maybe if you used that prefrontal cortex more often, you'd have a better memory and be able to recognize the guy who stole your bike! Really, these vagrants have better things to do with their time than stand around for hours while you struggle to pick out the culprit.
Our bet's on the third explanation -- what do you think?
One last interesting detail to note is the casual placement of beer bottles around the set. You can't get away with that in the U.S.!
Promotional Consideration is a weekly feature about the Nintendo DS advertisements you usually flip past, change the channel on, or just tune out.
